October 31 2016

By: Jackie Hook

Monday, October 31, 2016

And here is the conclusion to the story, “Why Death is Like the Banana Tree” from the book The Moon in the Well Wisdom Tales to Transform Your Life, Family, and Community by Erica Helm Meade and David Abram:

The couple considered the options for some time. If they chose to be childless, they would always be restored to life, like the moon. It would be lonely, however, and they would have no one to help them with their work, no one to teach, to love, or to strive for. They told God they preferred to be fruitful like the banana tree. God granted their wish. They had many fine children and a happy life and then they died. Since then there has been much love and new life on this earth, replenishing generation after generation. But since the first couple chose, each individual's life is brief, and in the end the body withers like a banana tree.

Much of the richness of the human experience is tied to our mortality. We would not endeavor to love and to create, if it weren’t for our role as mortal creatures with finite lives in which we eventually grow old and die.